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The other day there was lightning in my neighbourhood, my power did not go out but my rogers pvr, hd receiver and cable modem stopped working. Also the inputs on both my tv's stopped working. I had the tv's repaired and the tv repair guy said that it was due to foreign voltage on the hdmi cables going to the tv. Now rogers replaced the boxes under warranty but I am stuck with 2 broken tvs and the hdmi cables are not working either. A rogers inspector came and noticed the cable splitters were not grounded at the house and a manager came after and is telling me that since the damage was caused by a power surge it is not their problem. Everything in the house is fine except for the things that were plugged to rogers, the stuff even turns on it just has non working inputs. There is no sign of burnt coax cables only 3 non working rogers items that are currently being traced back in order to do an investigation. My questions are... if the coax is not grounded inside thats a big deal right? is that code? also if the boxes did surge (which I am convinced was not buy lightning since my power didnt go out) is it rogers fault? How can I defend myself?? All help is appreciated. Thank you!

I had the tv's repaired and the tv repair guy said that it was due to foreign voltage on the hdmi cables going to the tv. Now rogers replaced the boxes under warranty but I am stuck with 2 broken tvs and the hdmi cables are not working either.

Sorry I can't understand what you are saying. Were the TV's repaired or are they working?

Have you spoken to your insurance agent. They might be able to help you.

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Lightning (surges caused by it) can often act in strange ways on equipment, only affecting certain equipment, or equipment on one specific circuit, etc. It can also affect items that are connected to cable, phone or as in my case a weather station which has cables to the roof...

As mentioned by hugh, your likely best course of action is through insurance, or to simply bite the bullet. It's highly unlikely that you can go after cable, phone, etc. Cable should be grounded properly near the point it reaches your home - sometimes called the demarcation point. This could be inside or outside - usually a thick green wire connected to plumbing or a hydro meter.

The only way to totally preclude surge damage is to disconnect an electronic device completely (electrical power and other connection if applicable)

I just had a Rogers tech in to fix a signal issue by installing an amplifier and some splitters. He did not ground any of the devices so I asked him if he should and he said no, because it's grounded at the box and that's all that matters.

I also had a similar incident where a lightening strike took out my cable and a bunch of stuff in the house including my big screen TV. When I first called Rogers that my cable was dead they were implying that it must have been something that I did. I told them we had a lightening strike nearby but they said that most likely it was my fault and would have to pay to repair the cable. Total pricks. Then the rest of the street called and they back tracked big time fixing the melted cable free of charge. However they did not cover anything that was damaged, home insurance did that.

^^^^
He was right about grounding. All utilities are to be grounded at one common point at the entrance. Otherwise, you could wind up with significant voltages between, for example, power ground and TV cable, which could damage your equipment. You don't even need lightning for that to happen.

Grounding does not mean your equipment is safe. I had a nearby lightning strike a few years back blow out a lot of my equipment and my cable is properly grounded to the water pipes. Your home insurance should cover a lightning strike.

^^^^
Quite so. Nothing will protect you from a direct or very close hit. However, proper grounding goes a long way to avoiding such problems. One thing a lot of people don't realize is there are often electrical currents in the ground, even without lightning. For example, a charged cloud can induce ground currents long before there's any lightning. There may also be currents due to power lines or street cars. By connecting everything to a common ground, you reduce or eliminate problems from the various sources.

A UPS helps with small surges (and power outages), however, it would not stop a huge surge as in a nearby lightning strike. Nothing would stop that outside of unplugging your equipment from power and any provider, as mentioned in posts 3, 7.

OK just for the purpose of this discussion what happens if you classify God the same as Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. If your chimney is damaged on the evening of December 24th will they blame Santa Claus? OK enough joking. I think they now call it an act of nature right? So lightening, floods, hail, rain, wind, tornadoes, hurricanes, freezing rain, snow damage, land slides, avalanches, earthquakes, slides, slumps, sink holes, drought, solar flares etc. Did I miss any?

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^^^^
If I was denied a claim due to an "act of God", the first thing I'd do is ask them to prove there is in fact a God and then show he/she/it did the damage. Otherwise, they're just using delusion to avoid paying a claim. There's no room for a concept of God in law.

It was a joke. That was made clear. But lets discuss "Acts of Nature" this is what I asked.

I know this is an old thread but I have often wondered what exactly happens when your equipment mysterious stops working and there is no obvious cause. Could have been someone in your neighborhood fed back into the coax grid or faulty wiring etc.

I would imagine that if lighting struck a pole and it traveled down the coax it would take out a lot of stuff along the way not just at the customers end.

It is too bad the OP did not follow up.

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I had lightening come in through Rogers cable and destroyed a brand new Sanyo television - oh, must have been pushing 20-years ago now. Local TV repair guy said he'd had a few calls from my neighbours that week.

At that time, I took it to Sanyo, and argued that their manual clearly stated that their manual said to unplug the TV during a storm. But as everyone (including Sanyo) agreed the damage had come in through the cable, I said that they should have said in the manual to disconnect the cable TV as well.

So Sanyo rebuilt the TV ... based on the cost I saw later on, they'd have been better simply to replace it.

Not sure this would work anymore ...

In my defence ... I was a starving student at the time ... and there was no way I'd be able to afford to replace the TV, which was a huge luxury purchase for me at the time. These days, I'd simply curse, and drive to Future Shop.

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